Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice's first major patch since launch is to be made available in the early hours of tomorrow morning, bringing with it multiple tweaks and changes that'll make certain sections of the game slightly easier while toning down the need for Spirit Emblems ever so slightly.

Probably the biggest change takes the form of a decrease in Spirit Emblem usage for certain prosthetic tools. The Lazulite Sacred Flame, the Loaded Axe series, the Sparking Axe, and the Lazulite Axe will now cost less Spirit Emblems to use in combat, while their efficiency is also said to have increased. Elsewhere, the Sabimaru prosthetic tool's poison build-up has received a buff, and the drop rate of Divine Confetti has been increased.

The Blazing Bull is a boss fight that has proved difficult for some players, and From Software has responded in kind by lowering its posture and vitality. It joins a long list of bug fixes for items, enemies, and sequence breaks, as well as improved stability and performance all around.

Will the 1.03 patch aid your playthrough in any way? Spend less Spirit Emblems in the comments below.

Boooo! You gotta take the bull by the horns. No making no boss fight easier. The divine confetti is fine, but the boss fight patch in a From game is just dumb. I’m glad I already did. Make an easy mode for those people.

The bull was the easiest boss for me, so far anyway. I completely disagree with making the game easier, it’s hard for a reason and this is why you get such an amazing sense of achievement from these games when you finally kill that boss. People who complain about an easy mode should just go play a Lego game.

He’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it, keep a lot of difference so he charges you, deflect, run in for a few stabs and repeat. You basically want to be holding down circle to get in close quickly after you’ve deflected his stampede otherwise he’ll recover before you get there.

I beat that bull by chasing it in a circle until I was behind it. Once my finger started to ache from all of the parrying my strategy for most of the boss fights was to just sprint in a wide circle and wait for openings.

Not noted above is that they also made some enemies harder; the regular enemies will keep attacking when they previously would stop attacking you, which was a bug.

As for the bull, he’s a pretty ridiculous early boss or mini boss, whatever he is. I finally figured out if you trap him in the small area in the back and to the right, where space is limited, he can’t really do that same charge attack and you can keep jumping on him and slashing him as you come down. The biggest problem with him was his posture was very difficult to decrease.

@nessisonett I always say it depends on play styles. A lot of people said father casgoine (or however you spell it) was one of the toughest fights in bloodborne but I honestly just blazed through it and found one of the "easier" bosses a lot tougher

Never had much problem with the Blazing Bull (Firecrackers. It makes the fight a joke), but Sabimaru and the other axes besides Spring Loaded were useless with that high SE cost. Definitely happy to see them get a buff especially Sabimaru which is just a pointless prosthetic.
The finger whistle is better. A ****ing finger whistle.

The Shuriken and the Firecrackers are just too powerful. Way too powerful. That dash after Shuriken and Firecracker helps tremendously to keep posture damage up, and they happen so quick.

I'd really love to see more primary weapons in Sekiro 2, the game lacks heavily in variety. HEAVILY.
Hopefully these buffs will make it more fun to use the other prosthetics.

Firecrackers. Two heavies. Run away. Wait for opening. Fire crackers. Two heavies. Run away. Wait for opening. Rinse repeat.
Be sure to deflect as well.
You can also deflect dance by spamming the button, and the game won't punish you for it.
Like at all.

He is very easy, but he is tedious as all get out. Probably the worst boss in the game.
Make sure you buy the Firecrackers from the Memorial Mob in the Ashina Outskirts.

I played Bloodborne and loved it..I do love a challenge when it feels fair. But I am struggling so so much with Sekiro to the point I’m not having any fun at all. The sense of fulfilment hasn’t been there for me when I’ve managed to complete a difficult boss- instead it’s made me angry with how long it took me to beat it. The game is just simply not for me. I’ve never felt so stressed, frustrated and burnt out from playing a video game in my life.

@ShulkZetta I think taking away the option of leveling was possibly a mistake. On the other hand, it is making me work harder to actually get good. It remains to be seen whether I’ll be good enough to complete the game...

The Firecrackers are the second prosthetic you can get get potentially. Right after the Shuriken. It doesn't matter about order, but you can definitely miss it the first time you can potentially pick it up.
They help so much it's not even funny. Screw that bull fight! I'd never consider fighting it without the Firecrackers; that fight is awful.

Never used Sabimaru on Genichiro, so I'll have to try it! I've never had any use for that prosthetic though. Even if it's useful for Genichiro that's one fight, and Firecrackers and Shurikens work on him as well.

Raging Bull is one the (mini?) bosses I did on my first go (the other being the boss right before), and I would class myself as average ability (certainly nothing like those skilled guys on you Tube). I’m surprised that’s the one they toned down difficulty on this boss when there are much harder ones.

@AFCC After 7 or 8 try? Let me laugh at this, Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I died more than 50 times for one of the boss, yet I still went for it and manage to defeat after taking a few days break.I've died countless time to other bosses and never gave up and I'm almost done with the game now.

I don't see how people can enjoy getting their butt handed to them 50 times by the same boss. I usually take a break and do something else long before reaching 50 failures. And if I still can't beat it, I move on to another game that is actually fun to play.

@AFCC because all u have to do is run around and swipe at his ass everytime he stops to change position and turn and when he stop in one spot to swipe his head at u, u side step towards his ass. Just hold circle or B most of the fight or grind coins for the firecrackers

I admit some of the bosses are infuriating to fight like why does my hands have to ache and be stiff playing a game dying to some bs attack when i jump out the way lmao i never had this prob on dark souls and blood borne. Pressing o and x L1 rapidly or getting double teamed by guardian apes like fohhh🤣

The hysteria in this comment section around one mini boss being slightly patched is quite odd. I really don't see this as a big deal at all but the idea that From Soft games can't have their difficultly remotely altered (even by the dev themselves) is ridiculous.

@Gamer83 There are certainly gamers better than I am, but I have finished all the From games (still working on Sekiro). I've also won first place in an international retro gaming competition, so I do have very good reflexes and timing. But I would never as you did marginalize other people and classify them as "crybabies" because they "suck at games". It's not like being a good/great gamer is some admirable life skill, so please stop being so prideful about it.

And get your facts straight, please. From has patched EVERY modern game they have made in similar ways. The bull was slightly patched. Sekiro was also made HARDER in some ways, if you read the detailed notes.

Yeah man. That fight is just bad. It really is, especially because of how early it is, and the fact that the game expects you to use a prosthetic that is easily missed. Not to mention it's just tedious to do with the bull only using three moves doing the whole fight

I'll have to replay that boss again, but I'm pretty sure that if you used firecrackers the nerf to him wouldn't have helped too much just because of how much posture damage it does to him.

This was a nerf for people who didn't want to use Firecrackers, and because a lot of people, speedrunners included, will just exploit the traversal system to skip this boss altogether.